Head Coach Bill Lynch's Weekly Press Conference

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Head Coach Bill Lynch met with members of the media on Monday to review last week's game against Ohio State and look forward to this weekend's Homecoming contest against Arkansas State. He was joined by senior quarterback Ben Chappell.

Below is a partial transcript of the press conference.

Photo by IU Athletics

Bill Lynch

Head Coach Bill Lynch -- Opening statement:

"In reviewing the tape of everything, it pretty much confirms what I talked about after the game. We played a really good football team on Saturday. Obviously they dominated us, but I think they are certainly worthy of being the number one team in the country. I haven't seen everybody, but they have the whole package, and they played that way on Saturday. We did not play the way we needed to play in the first half to give ourselves a chance.

"We'll address that, make corrections and we'll move on to Arkansas State, which is another team that has some very good football players. The Sun Belt is a good football league. They are 2-2 (in conference) coming off a win over North Texas. They played Auburn and Louisville in the non-conference. They played Louisville very well and Auburn is an undefeated team as well. I know this time last year, they went into Iowa City when Iowa was undefeated and it was 24-21, so I'm sure that gives them confidence coming into our place."

On the defense:

"We have looked at everything. In fact, we met for a long time this morning about that. I think that if there is one thing, we've given up some big plays. Our goal is to give up four big plays or less a game. Offensively, we would like to have six or more. When you break it down that way, we've given up 28 big plays on defense. We're at five-plus a game so we must cut back a couple a game. You're not going to go into Ohio Stadium and all of a sudden not give up any big plays. They're going to get some big plays. You're not going to play Michigan and not give up some plays. But we have to limit them. Is there a common theme? We've looked at everything from what defense we're in, what coverage we're in, what was the down and distance, was it a mistake or was it a missed tackle - and it was all of those things. It's not like `We'll get that corrected because it was this causing the big plays.' By studying it, it kind of brings it into focus and we just have to keep going.

"There is no panic and there is no `We can't play this coverage because it's giving up big plays.' It's been something a little bit different each time. And even the ones on Saturday, each one was a bit different.

"It was a mix between the run and the pass. There have been more big plays in the run game than the pass game. You would think it would be the other way around. Our run defense has been very good with a few exceptions, and those few exceptions have been the big plays that have hurt us. The unfortunate thing is too many of them have gone for touchdowns. If you give up a big play and then can stop them, you can force a field goal or turnover."

On Ohio State's defense stopping Indiana:

"It goes back to how good they are on defense. They are going to do that to a lot of teams. The biggest thing that happened is that they can bring pressure with their front four. They didn't have to blitz a lot and when they did blitz, it was usually some kind of zone pressure. They were able to put pressure and get in Ben's (Chappell) face with a four-man rush. And in a hurry. We're not going to make any excuses, but we were down a few guys up front. They are very good up front. I'd say when you turn on the tape to watch them, when I was in here last Monday at this time, I knew this was an unbelievable defensive front we're playing. When they can put pressure on you like that with four guys, they can get in the face of the wideouts knowing we weren't going to have time to throw it down the field. So what we're pretty good at is the short passing game and the throw and catch and run with our guys. They were jumping us pretty good because they weren't worried about getting beat over the top because we weren't going to have time to throw it."

On the reserves performances:

"I thought Dusty (Kiel) and Ed (Wright-Baker) both performed well. Take statistics out because when it's a short stint, completion percentage may depend on other factors. They both handled themselves well in the situation. I thought Nick Turner played well. He is getting more and more involved in the special teams, but I thought he caught the ball out of the backfield, had a couple runs and was playing with more confidence. Up front, Pat McShane got to play quite a bit and I thought he did well. Teddy Bolser, I'm mentioning all redshirt freshmen now, he almost got another score. Antonio Banks had some runs and did a pretty good job in pass protection."

On Arkansas State's ability to score points:

"They are an explosive team and a very wide open team. There is probably more you have to defend against than any team we've played this year. They will run a lot of things and they feed off big plays. They will run trick plays and there is a lot in their arsenal that we have to get ready for. And they have great skill. I like their quarterback, he's a good player. Their offense line, for the most part, returns in tact so there is experience there. They have good skill on the outside."

On Arkansas State's defensive scheme:

"They are real sound on defense. They play a lot of man coverage. They are not necessarily a big blitzing team. They have good skill in the secondary and they have big, physical players up front. They don't do as much on defense as they do on offense."

On preparing the reserves to play:

"One thing that we did this summer on purpose, and probably more so than any team I've been around, is that we repped our two's and three's a lot. With this in mind, as injuries mount, we want guys that have been working in our offense for a long time. Some places the one's and two's are the only guys that get the work. Studying our past, we have run into some injuries or some depth situations, so we want guys that have run our offense and not calling guys back from the scout field that haven't run our offense since the third week of camp, and make sure they understand all the calls, blocking and protection schemes. I feel good about it because I mentioned (Pat) McShane played, (Jordan) Marquette played a ton of plays and Colin Rodkey played. (Josh) Hager played quite a few minutes and Chris Ahlfeld got in there. We had guys in there that had practiced and there weren't any mental mistakes or breakdowns that way."

On the team's discipline and lack of penalties:

"We were pretty good again from a penalty standpoint (on Saturday). We had three penalties - two procedures and both of those I want to attribute to crowd noise early in the game until we got settled down. Then we had the penalty on the special teams play, interfering with the catch. We played a lot of guys and didn't have many penalties, which means they were in tune with what we were doing."

Senior quarterback Ben Chappell -- On team's response to the Ohio State loss:

"It's not easy when you get beat like that. They pretty much handled us in every facet. You have to give the credit to them. They are now the number one team in the country for a good reason. I think that they are a great football team, no questions. From our standpoint, we have to go back and really look and see what we did and what we didn't do well. And go from there, because that was just one game, but it's not easy to get beat like that, it really isn't. We have to respond, that's our only choice."

On Ohio State's offensive and defensive lines:

"I think they're pretty good on the line, both sides. Their guy had time to throw it, and we didn't have as much time. I think that that is the game of football, it's won at the line of scrimmage, no question, and I believe that from the bottom of my heart. Those big guys up front, that's all that matters. The credit goes to them. I think they have one of the best defensive lines in the country. They beat us in that phase and in other phases, too."

On throwing errors during the game:

"The two interceptions were untimely and bad. I think the first one was a miscommunication, but I still probably shouldn't have thrown it. The second one got away from me, I threw it off my back foot, stuff like that, you just can't do. There was a lot of pressure, but you just have to step into it and I think there are things that everyone can improve on, me included."

On Indiana's trouble stopping Ohio State's pass rush:

"It's one of those things that I can't make an excuse about. I feel confident in every guy that was in there on Saturday. It's one of those things where we have to go back and watch and see what happened. Some of it was that I didn't pick up a couple of blitzes with the right protection, so some of it comes back to me. Some of it was that they have some really great players. There are going to be times when we are going to get beat so that happened. Unfortunately guys do get hurt, but that's part of football. You just have to keep driving on and get those guys healthy."

On Ohio State's strategy:

"You can come off of any game when you get beat like that and teams are probably going to want to use that as a blueprint. I think that there are things that we could have done better to expose what they did to us. It came down to the fact that they covered us and they beat the guys that were blocking for us. That's basic football. That comes back to being a really good football team, so I think there are things that we can take away from it like some of the schemes they used. They had good plays coming in and they executed them well."